


Being a Titan Means Only Having to Say I Love You At Funerals

by ethrosdemon, Petra



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Denial, M/M, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-23
Updated: 2007-07-23
Packaged: 2018-09-09 20:49:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8911444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ethrosdemon/pseuds/ethrosdemon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: Maybe he'd just punch Roy in the shoulder and laugh it off.





	

Dick has a way about him, a sort of casual sexiness that shouts porno but has less sleaze in it than Ollie. Maybe it's the lack of eyebrow waggling or the fact that Roy's never seen Dick smack a girl on the ass. Whatever it is, Dick walks into a room and the air is sucked out leaving his pheromones and the smell of his shampoo -- spicy lemons. Roy used to think men weren't so much erotic as available, easy, but then Dick ran a hand through his too-long hair one afternoon, backlit by the horrible fluorescent light in the Tower, and Roy could almost feel the fine strands of the hair against his own fingers. Yeah, that's all she wrote really. The little things slay, like the way Dick's jeans crease between his thigh and hip or the way he does mock ballet twirls and his shirt rides up exposing his belly as he laughs. Roy has spent more time jerking off to the thought of Dick's mouth than pretty much anything else in his vast bank of his internal porno. Kissing Dick, sucking him, moaning his name; Dick ordering him in that bitchy awful perfect command voice to come, hard, for him, right now. That one always works in a toe-curling, black-out sort of way.

But Dick is oblivious, which is a word that Roy only knows because Donna once said, "Dick's oblivious about how everyone has a crush on him. I think it's why he's so hot." And Roy worked out what that meant. But he doesn't think the reason Dick's smokin' is because he's too stupid to get it. That's just a bonus. One that works against Roy. Sometimes he envies Babs -- she's sassy, she's stacked, she's smart --and she has the tactical Bat-advantage that Roy'll never have. She's the kind of person that Dick wants, self-assured and dangerous and, well, a girl.

Maybe Dick would actually want him if Roy could ask. Maybe he'd just punch Roy in the shoulder and laugh it off. Maybe he'd clam up and go all weird.

There aren't any swelling violins in Roy's favorite version of how it would all go down, but the scenario always ends with Dick saying his name, in his ear, hot and humid and not like anybody else. Just like when they're working and Dick spins around and grabs him by the waist sometimes, the way the whole line of his body presses into Roy's side and Dick says, "Speedy," and what he means is "No, not yet! You'll get hurt!" Maybe one day, Dick will step up to him, all of a sudden, and grab him and say "Roy," and what he'll mean is "Yeah, this's what I want, too."

Roy hasn't figured out how to say, "Robin," like he needs to, yet. He keeps choking it back when he's thinking about Dick, because fuck knows Ollie would never let him hear the end of it. Not about being gay, but about being gay for Dick. Bats are bad news, Ollie'd say, and he's right. What Ollie means, though, is that Bats are part of the totalitarian oppressive structure of American quasi-democracy. What Roy means, on the other hand, is that they're all so damn hot. Except Batman, but it's better not to even go there.

Maybe the real problem’s that Dick's also exactly what Roy sometimes thinks he's supposed to be, with a double helping of drop-dead gorgeous, and it's impossible not to look up to him. And when you start admiring somebody -- the slope is slippery, all the way from hero worship to wanting to be naked for Dick on his knees or on his back with his legs in the air. Everything gets confusing, wrapped up together so that Roy doesn’t know how much of his need is for a “Good job, Speedy!” and how much of it’s for Dick’s fingers against his mouth and teeth on his ear.

Roy's had it bad before, he's fallen for people, been crushed. He's been crushed on and ignored it and sometimes taken advantage of people who wanted him when he shouldn't have. He's had a hell of a role model there. On the days when he follows Ollie's other lead, to the liquor cabinet, he thinks Dick's his punishment for never being the kind of person he should be. Roy's never met a mistake he didn't love at first sight. Dick can be a real pain in the ass, but his mistakes even seem innocent compared to Roy's.

Roy watches Dick perched on the arm of the couch in the lounge. He's pulling off his gloves -- he never can wait to take those suckers off -- and laying them over his bare thigh. Dick angles his head towards Garth in his "I'm really listening and care about every detail of your really stupid story" way. Roy scratches the side of his face, and the movement catches Dick's attention. When Dick doesn't smile immediately, Roy's heart flies into his throat as he wonders if he's got everything written all over his face.

"Right," Dick says to Garth, and throws his gloves at Roy. "Speedy, we have to talk."

There's nothing Dick's going to say that will make anything any better. "Yeah? What, did I get in your way too much?" It's not what he wants to say -- he knows he's not as good as Dick at any of the caping, but he also doesn't mean to act all needy like he’s new at this.

When they’re in the field, he should stay back, be the first line of defense like a good little archer, and never tangle with the big guns or the big guys up close. He already knows that. He's been in the game long enough to know logistics. And it's not like Dick -- being Dick – doesn't take point against anything and anyone, even though Donna can take twenty times the hits he can.

Dick nods to Garth, story over and acknowledged, and comes over to smack Roy in the shoulder. "Gotta work on your sweeps. And -- yeah, you were in the wrong place a little."

"That's me, always the wrong place at the wrong time." The tone he was aiming at is ha-ha, but it comes out lower down, angry even in his own ears. Dick's left eyebrow quirks and his chin comes up. Roy knows by now not to go looking for validation from anyone (maybe besides Dinah or Hal when he's feeling really worn) by now, but he also doesn't need to get everything tossed in his face all the time.

"Share with the class, Speedy?" Sometimes, not often, but sometimes they get into it. They can button-push and one-up just like anyone else with a long history and plenty of issues.

"If I had something to say, don'tcha think I would?" And he hates himself for turning this into a fight, but he needs to get the hell away from Dick right now. He's wound too tight, and in the mood he's in, he doesn't know if he wants Dick to kiss him or to pick a huge fight that will end in death glares and both of them stomping back home to fume.

But the thing about that is that Dick doesn't know when to let something go. He's right there next to Roy, bumping his shoulder as he peels his mask off.

"Did...did something happen at home?" Dick whispers almost under his breath, and isn't it totally typical that one of the Bats would blame anything Roy-related on Ollie?

"Jesus, Dick, no." Roy takes his hat off and rakes his fingers through his hair. Most of the time, all the swipes at Ollie piss Roy off because they're true. This time, it's because it isn't. "I can screw up plenty without anybody's help."

Dick gives him a look like Roy's expression is going into the Bat-files later -- and it probably will. Data points on Harper, Roy, moods and emotions.

No, if Dick had that kind of file, he'd have either pinned Roy against a wall and fucked him years ago or stopped talking to him. Or maybe just told him to keep it in his pants, light and teasing. Getting turned down by Dick is pretty far from his worst fear -- and he has plenty of things to fear. Plenty of nightmares. The really awful ones are about getting kicked off the Titans when he gets caught in an alley with a guy who looks not enough like Dick to be him and not enough unlike him for pretending it's a coincidence. Getting turned down might not be as bad as that, but it'd ruin what they have now. Roy doesn't have a lot of history with good, with people who are reliable, apart from his years on the Titans.

This close up, Dick smells like sweat from the humidity of a heavy summer evening in a city mixed with car exhaust and that expensive soap that's probably straight from France, spicy and a little like chocolate. Roy just wants to grab a shower and get back to Star City and put this day behind him. He needs to get laid, maybe get a boyfriend for the novelty factor of seeing Ollie be all pompous about starting a support group for parents of gay kids.

He snaps his arm out to pound open the locker room door with Dick still dogging after him, his worry hanging off him like a cape.

"You know you can talk to me."

Roy sets his quiver down next to one of the long, low benches that replaced the last set they destroyed. He keeps his back to Dick as he peels at his mask. The inner edge catches on the thin skin under his right eye and he winces.

"About anything."

"Seriously, nothin's wrong. I'm just tired." That line works on Donna most of the time. He wonders what crazy scenario Dick's cooked up in his twisted brain about what's wrong. Already did the drug thing, so maybe knocked some girl up? STD? A fondness for leather?

"Come on," Dick says, and he leans against the locker next to Roy's. He's not lounging, but he looks comfortable enough to stay awhile. Long enough for Roy to suck him off, there, and make him get it.

"Just because you and Bats never get tired --" Roy drops his mask into the locker and peels his shirt off. Next to Dick, he reeks of sweat and streets, and he can't stand the smell of his own pits. "I just need -- I don't know. Cookies and a nap."

Dick raises his eyebrow at Roy. "So you can get over what, exactly? Did you get dumped?"

If he leans in and kisses Dick, he'll get dumped on his ass for his trouble. Or Wally will come in, his timing as horrible as ever, and Dick will never forgive Roy for embarrassing him. Still -- he's no good at outright lying to Dick. Always, always ends up caught when he tries. "Not exactly."

"Well, that clears things up!" Dick shoves at him and Roy uses that as cover to step away a bit, to shuck off his boots and flip open his belt.

"It's just one of those things. You know. The road not taken and all that." Maybe he's cutting it a little close, but Old Oblivious over there hasn't gotten it yet, when Roy's practically climbed in his lap a hundred times, so whatever.

"Yeah? Donna?" Dick scratches at a patch of glue from his mask stuck on the side of his nose as Roy kicks off the rest of his uniform leaving him in the lameass underroos he has to wear underneath. Now he feels even weirder. At least his costume isn't half comprised of panties.

"Shower time." Smooth.

"Sounds like a plan." It wasn't the plan to get naked with Dick, even if him flinging his tunic off and shucking out of his panties is one of those ten zillion fantasies come to life.

Roy stares into his locker instead and yells at himself and especially his dick, because there's no way in hell it's going to end up the way it does in his head. Even less if he's all excited. He thinks about the last time he had to go sewer-crawling and found a corpse, bloated and gross. "I can make plans. Simple ones, anyway. But I might get in your way again."

He can't believe that came out of his mouth, and if he could punch himself in the face without making Dick ask why, he'd be doing it right now. Get in the way -- jerk him off -- and the images are back, and he's going to have to figure out some damn way to explain this unless Dick goes away by the time he has to turn around again. He grabs his towel and thinks about dumpsters and being covered in gunk.

Dick pats him on the shoulder like he has no idea Roy's dying. "You're better than that. Don't be so down on yourself."

He'd like to go down on -- not now, dammit.

Whether it's lucky or not, Roy's not entirely sure, but Dick swans away to the shower stall he always uses humming to himself. Roy wraps his towel around his waist and watches the opaque glass of the stall Dick's in for any sudden movements. The shhh of the water turning on makes him at least brave enough to walk past Dick with the obvious hard on he's sporting through his undies and his towel. He picks the door three down from Dick even though it's not like he can jack off anyway because it's just too weird.

The little peg that holds his towel and underwear is damp and the floor is wet, and he wonders who was just in this shower. He rolls his face on the cool tile before it heats up from the scalding water pouring out of the showerhead. Roy focuses on the water running through the hair on his arms and legs and takes deep breaths to steady himself. He reminds himself that he's been through all this before. He's wanted things he couldn't have, and, hell, he'll do it all over again. He just has to live through this bad part -- this fuck or fight bit where he can't be civil and he can't be reasonable because he feels like his skin's about to crawl off his body.

The tap on the glass behind him sends tiny ice crystals through his blood, something like running into Dinah when he's half-drunk knowing she's going to look disapproving and yell a lot.

"Now you can't run away," Dick sort of sing-songs. "I'm going to guess what's wrong and you can just tap on the glass when I get it right."

Roy moans, half from the way his thighs tighten at Dick's voice and half from annoyance.

"So. Is this someone I know? One for no, two for yes."

"How many for 'I am not playing this game'?" Roy asks, and turns the temperature down. It just makes him more uncomfortable without killing his erection, but it'll remind him not to grab himself even though Dick is right the hell there and not going away.

"That sounds like a yes." Dick drums his fingers on the door. "But you told me about Donna when we were -- so it has to be worse than that. Do you have a thing for Black Canary, Roy?"

And her fishnets, and her thighs. It's an easy out and happens to be true in a way, though not as true as "Do you have a thing for me, Roy?"

"Yes. And you know she's dating Ollie. Shut up and take your damn shower already."

"I took a speed shower." Dick clicks a nail on the glass and pauses long enough for Roy to blink open his eyes and turn his head towards the door. He can see the darker shadow of Dick's profile, but not well.

"Babs?" He uses his neutral tone that's anything other than neutral to Roy.

"Gimme a break." Roy reaches for the shampoo in the recessed alcove that holds the washcloth, soap and shampoo. The washcloth's folded and Roy wonders who was on bathroom duty last time. It's not like Roy would ever get between Dick and his crazy mad love for Babs. Like he'd be the kind of person who would even want to.

"Why won't you tell me?" Dick's voice wraps around the bottom of Roy's spine. He's upset. Roy's equal measures pissed that his own personal hell has turned into him feeling bad for making Dick upset and just genuinely sorry for making Dick, well, upset.

"You don't wanna know, okay?" His own voice mirrors Dick's because he can't be purposefully mean about this. On the upside, his erection's wilting with all the angst weighting it down.

"Is it Ollie?" The way Dick asks, soft and sort of muffled like he's pressing his face into the glass, makes Roy catch his breath, because he thinks, oh god, that Dick is actually sort of admitting The Thing They Never Talk About about himself, and oh god! How the hell is he gonna get out of this? He can't have the Batman talk now. No, no, no, no! And if Dick's going there, then what's going on in his life? Roy's being a giant asshole for no real reason besides to save his own feelings and isn't that the lowest thing a person can do, put themselves before the safety and well-being of others? Isn't that, basically, what their whole lives are about?

"It's you, okay, don't worry about it. I'll go away. It's all right." With the 'it's all right' he taps one knuckle on the glass to punctuate, to sort of say "yeah, I know. I've always known, Dick, it's really all right, buddy." Because Dick's not exactly subtle with the whole Bats thing.

Dick opens the shower door and gives him the meanest glare he's ever gotten from somebody he's actively hitting on. Like he's trying to grope Dick's girlfriend, here. "You're just going to go away?" he drops his towel and steps into the shower. "Damn, how can you stand it so cold?" Dick turns the hot water up and goes back to glaring at him.

They're a lot too close for Roy to even know where to look. "-- uh," he says, because he didn't really mean to explain what was on his mind, and now that he has, he's pretty sorry.

Apart from how all of Dick is right there and he could just lean over and kiss him -- and as soon as he thinks it, he's doing it, because he's never been that bright and he's never had really good boundaries. And Dick is right there, and his mouth is just as perfect to kiss as Roy always thought it would be.

Even if he breaks the kiss off to say, "You should've said something, Speedy." That's okay, too, because Dick actually kisses Roy this time, and it's as good as permission to believe this isn't some wacko fantasy-causing drug in his system. Dick's hair is wet from his shower and catches on the calluses on Roy's fingers, and he might just die right here.

Dick isn't what Roy expected. He seems like he should be cocky and dexterous, but he's sweet, touching the red patch under Roy's eye where his mask had stuck with the pad of his thumb and brushing his open mouth on the edge of Roy's own. His upper body sort of melts against Roy's with a soft "hhh" of breath against the side of Roy's face.

"You made yourself sick over me?" Dick whispers into his neck, and from anyone else, it'd be a bullshit angling for a compliment, but Dick really doesn't get it when it comes to this stuff.

"You've never seen you, you know?" He's never seen himself flicking out a wrist to throw a jumpline, the maniacal grin and the way his hair curls up in the front in a cow lick. He's never seen himself rolling his eyes at Superman and getting a smirk from the Man of Steel in return.

Dick works his hand through the back of Roy's hair and tugs his head to the side so he can kiss the tendon it flexes. Roy traces the sunburst scar on Dick's side he's seen often but never gotten a backstory on.

"Yes, but --" Dick bites him lightly -- probably bat-training to never give anybody a hickey. "I'm right here."

"I -- I can tell." Roy squeezes his hip. "But you -- you never --"

"You never asked." Dick kisses him again, then lets him go and looks him over. "It's really kind of sweet."

Roy still can't believe this is going to happen more than once, and he doesn't want to be the one who makes it not work out, but this isn't helping. "Fuck you," he says, and softens it as much as he can with a grin. "I just --" He kisses Dick again.

The skin of Dick's thumb is rough on his nipple and makes him hiss. "You just what?"

He knows "Nothing" won't work as an answer, so he doesn't even bother to say it. Instead, he goes with one of the other fantasies -- one of the ones that'll maybe make Dick think he's not a complete fuck-up -- and gets down on his knees. "I -- want you." It's easier to say it out loud like that from down here, like it's safer there.

Dick stares at him like he's growing an extra head. "Roy, you -- do you really --"

Only problem with being on the floor is he can't kiss Dick to shut him up, but he can reach his dick and pull him in by the hips. "What do you think?" he asks, and he's never going to get Dick to do this for him – he seems too nervous about just this -- so Roy makes it good and dirty, big showy licks like porn until Dick groans.

Dick's fingers trace along Roy's hairline back and forth and he rocks back solidly on his heels. Dick's balance is inhuman, not meta but almost. The water gets in Roy's eyes when he tries to look up. Dick stares down with his clear Robin's egg blue eyes. His bangs are plastered to his face and reaches to turn off the tap as Roy flicks out his tongue to lick a bead of water off the end of Dick's cock before it falls. The eye contact is way bigger than touching Dick like this, on his knees and lips rubbing open-mouthed where he'd just licked.

"Roy." And that's the tone he's been waiting for, the exact word said the exact right way, and Roy has to drop his eyes and suck Dick in before he gives up the bigger ghost here. This isn't just about getting off -- it's about shared blood and sunrises at fourteen, nursing burning lungs and all the other words that don't need to be said. Belonging.

Dick feels perfect in his mouth, and the plain fact of the weight of him makes Roy grunt. There's nothing fake about this part, and it's not just his imagination. Not now, not while he's got the salt of Dick's pre-come on the back of his tongue. Nothing Roy has tried is quite as real as cocksucking, as inescapably you-are-here and it-is-now and you-are-doing-this.

He lets himself savor it until Dick sighs, and wraps his hand around Dick's dick, trying not to laugh at the thought. He hasn't had enough practice to really do this right, and it's just one more thing he's less than perfect at, but if he flicks his tongue and sucks a little harder, a little faster, maybe Dick won't notice how bad it is until after he comes.

"God, Roy --" Dick's hand on the back of his neck makes him shiver and try harder until he gags and his eyes start to water. He'd do anything for Dick, anything to make himself as good as he can be, even knowing that's not enough.

In the smooth kind of movement he's always envied, Dick knocks him with the base of his palm against Roy's forehead and Roy sprawls back trying to keep from hitting his head on the tile as Dick collapses with one knee between Roy's legs and the other rubbing on his outer thigh.

"You know..." Dick brushes Roy's hair off his forehead and angles his head for a kiss that's all tongue and hair-pulling. Without thinking, Roy's arms both come around Dick and pull him more firmly into his lap.

The dimmer timer switches the lights off in the locker room proper and weird shadows toss together on the wall behind Dick when he pulls back from the kiss. His mouth draws along Roy's cheek until it settles on his ear.

"You're too hard on yourself." The hand in Roy's hair doesn't let him pull back, get the distance to make a smart ass comment. Dick rolls his hips and slides his knee against Roy's cock.

"I've always liked redheads." Dick whispers with a half laugh and the twist in his voice that is Dick being hard on himself.

"You don't have to," Roy still needs to fuck this up somewhere deep down in the place where his worst impulses -- drugs, self-loathing, the need for approval -- come from.

Dick sighs and tilts his head until his face in is Roy's direct line of sight. "You didn't laugh at my joke. I'm hurt, Speedy."

He's flirting with the long sweeps of eyelashes and the turned up mouth. They're naked in a shower stall and Roy can still taste his cock in his mouth and Dick's seducing him?

"You're a nutjob." Yeah, he can do it this way, with a smile and Dick's hand creeping down Roy's belly.

"That makes two of us." Dick's fingers trace his belly button and the line of wiry hairs underneath.

Roy laughs and feels something give in his heart, or his chest, or maybe just his head. This is why he wanted Dick, and why he never thought he could have what he wanted. "Two of a kind," he says, and he doesn't mean it except in all the ways he does.

"You think?" The way Dick smiles -- Roy wants to hear more, listen to him all day and all night and store up the little ways his breathing skips when he's really truly flirting with Roy for when the world notices what they're doing and this never happens again.

"Sometimes." Dick kisses him, sucks at his tongue like his mouth doesn't taste like dick -- or like it's not a problem, even though Roy's still trying to figure out how that even works, with Dick and Batgirl --

Bats is going to make Jell-O out of him if. If, when, this comes out, because Dick's an even worse liar than Roy is. Batman is a keep in it the family sort of guy with his protocols and weird files and secrets.

Dick's hand is on Roy's dick and he can't say no to that, even with the looming image of Batman on a rampage in his head. All he can say to that is, "Oh, fuck yes."

The butterflies low in his belly flutter faster and faster and he's so turned on he has no chance of trying to make this special or even really do more than grab at Dick, hands everywhere. One settles in Dick's hair, slick and tangling around his fingers. Dick rocks his cock steadily against Roy's belly and jerks him off with hands callused from gym bars and the edges of roofs.

"Uuuh, hhhhhhh," Dick's hand tightens almost to the painful side and his pulling turns erratic and Roy blushes from his face down his chest because he thinks...oh, god, Dick's about to come. And then he does with a full body clench followed by his head dropping on Roy's shoulder and a soft laugh.

"Oops, got a little excited there."

"No kidding." Roy pushes into his fist and strokes his hair, trying not to laugh and not to come, not yet. Dick is flushed and sheepish and beautiful, and as soon as this is over, he's going to leave, and fuck if Roy is going to even be able to mention this.

"You're pretty damn hot," Dick says, and the way he's smiling makes Roy have to close his eyes so as not to come and fuck everything up already. "And -- god, your mouth, Roy --"

"Oh -- nngh --" Roy kisses him to shut him up, to make him not say things that are crazy and won't be true the second he comes. And to make himself not say them, either, because he's not, ever, going to pull out the l-word sitting in the Titans' shower, stripes of Dick's come on his stomach and the whole world disappearing to the point where all that matters, right now, is the way Dick's hand feels and the way he sucks on Roy's tongue and hums.

"I got you," Dick says, and bites Roy's lower lip, teasing. He can hear Dick grinning at him. "C'mon, Speedy, don't make me look like a jerk."

"Fuck --" Roy kisses him harder and says, "I love you" just inside his head, where he knows it's safe, and Dick jerks him and squeezes just right, and he's coming hard, seeing floaters blip by his optical nerve.

"There," Dick says, and lets him go. "Feeling better?"

Roy runs his hand down Dick's spine from his hairline to the dimples above his ass. "Better than what?" He flips his hair off his face with a twist of his head and watches the water caught in Dick's eyelashes vibrate as he blinks.

Dick's half smile drops away as he whispers, "You tell me."

Roy reaches above their heads for the smooth metal of the shower knob. Dick isn't getting up and he telegraphs that by pressing his sticky hand flat against Roy's belly to hold him in place.

"You know it's not like that," Dick sighs. "It doesn't have to be like that."

Roy has no frickin' clue what Dick means. He's a little foggy having just expelled his brain through his cock and he thinks someone's bound to come looking for them any minute. Dick's got this weird look on his face, like he's waiting for something with his mouth half-open and his eyes blinking wide.

"We gotta get up," Roy says, "and clean up, and -- go." Star City's waiting for him, and he's pretty sure Batman's looking forward to the part where Dick comes home.

Dick frowns at him, but he shifts his weight. "You do this to all the guys you blow in the shower, Speedy?"

It hurts, and it should hurt. Roy uses that pain and gets up. "So far."

Dick rolls to his feet, looking way too smooth and comfortable for somebody with come all over his stomach. "Maybe we should try it again sometime. See if you can get it right."

The shower blooms to life, cold at first, striking Roy right in the face. It's an excuse to close his eyes, not that he needs more than the excuses he can make up himself. Dick's hand on the back of his neck feels the same as it ever does, purposefully reassuring and intimate in that way Dick manages without ever pissing anyone off.

"Sure, why not?" Roy manages around the tentacled mess in his stomach.

"You really are a pain in the ass." Dick reaches around him for the soap and elbows him in the shoulder blade in a move that has to be calculated.

"Takes one to know one, shortpants."


End file.
